Related papers: Theory of the tertiary instability and the Dimits …
Tertiary modes in electrostatic drift-wave turbulence are localized near extrema of the zonal velocity $U(x)$ with respect to the radial coordinate $x$. We argue that these modes can be described as quantum harmonic oscillators with complex…
The tertiary instability is believed to be important for governing magnetised plasma turbulence under conditions of strong zonal flow generation, near marginal stability. In this work, we investigate its role for a collisionless strongly…
The Dimits shift, an upshift in the onset of turbulence from the linear instability threshold, caused by self-generated zonal flows, can greatly enhance the performance of magnetic confinement plasma devices. Except in simple cases, using…
The two-dimensional Terry-Horton equation is shown to exhibit the Dimits shift when suitably modified to capture both the nonlinear enhancement of zonal/drift-wave interactions and the existence of residual Rosenbluth-Hinton states. This…
We extend our previous work on the 2D Dimits transition in ion-scale turbulence (Ivanov et al. 2020) to include variations along the magnetic field. We consider a three-field fluid model for the perturbations of electrostatic potential, ion…
This study employs gyrokinetic simulations to investigate ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence in realistic fusion plasmas featuring reverse magnetic shear. Negative magnetic shear is found to suppress the ITG instability due to the…
The saturated state of turbulence driven by the ion-temperature-gradient instability is investigated using a two-dimensional long-wavelength fluid model that describes the perturbed electrostatic potential and perturbed ion temperature in a…
Transitionally turbulent flows frequently exhibit spatiotemporal intermittency, reflecting a complex interplay between driving forces, dissipation, and transport present in these systems. When this intermittency manifests as observable…
The transition between turbulent and zonal flow dominated states is investigated by varying the ion temperature gradient in nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations. Independent gradient scans reveal three distinct regimes: a turbulent regime at…
We demonstrate theoretically and numerically the zonal-flow/drift-wave feedback mechanism for the LH transition in an idealised model of plasma turbulence driven by a small scale instability. Zonal flows are generated by a secondary…
Stochastic Structural Stability Theory (S3T) provides analytical methods for understanding the emergence and equilibration of jets from the turbulence in planetary atmospheres based on the dynamics of the statistical mean state of the…
Insufficient numerical resolution of grid-based, direct numerical simulations (DNS) hampers the development of instabilitydriven turbulence at small (unresolved) scales. As an alternative to DNS, sub-grid models can potentially reproduce…
This manuscript has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Fluids, see https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/accepted/d5074S28J6b11905012b7cb06505e8f2149dd5f20. This work investigates the mechanisms that underlie transitions to…
The goal of this work is to investigate particle motions beneath unidirectional, deep-water waves up to the third-order in nonlinearity. A particular focus is on the approximation known as Stokes drift, and how it relates to the particle…
Although the roll/streak structure is ubiquitous in pre-transitional wall-bounded shear flow, this structure is linearly stable if the idealization of laminar flow is made. Lacking an instability, the large transient growth of the…
Intermittency as it occurs in fast dynamos in the MHD framework is evaluated through the examination of relations between normalized moments at third order (skewness S) and fourth order (kurtosis K) for both the velocity and magnetic field,…
This thesis presents a newly developed theory for the formation and maintenance of eddy-driven jets in planetary turbulence. The novelty is that jet formation and maintenance is studied as a dynamics of the statistics of the flow rather…
We study a quasi-two-dimensional electrostatic drift kinetic system as a model for near-marginal ion temperature gradient (ITG) driven turbulence. A proof is given of the nonlinear stability of this system under conditions of linear…
As a reduced representation of the nonlinear spectral fluxes of ideal invariants in incompressible magnetohydrodynamics, we construct a gradient-diffusion network model that combines phenomenological considerations and geometrical analysis…
Differential rotation is known to suppress linear instabilities in fusion plasmas. However, even in the absence of growing eigenmodes, subcritical fluctuations that grow transiently can lead to sustained turbulence. Here transient growth of…